L riders face delays, frustration thanks to halted Red Line service

CTA Red Line service on the North Side was shut down for hours Saturday after a train derailed north of the Granville L stop in Edgewater, causing Halloween day hassles for frustrated travelers some of which will continue throughout the weekend.

Though the CTA described the derailment as minor, riders were stranded for more than an hour on the derailed train.And others had to use a combination of shuttle bus and shuttle train to get far enough south to be able to find working Red Line trains again.

As of 9 p.m., southbound service on the Red Line was back to normal, with trains making all stops and no delays, according to CTA spokesman Steve Mayberry.

But northbound trains were making all stops only as far north as Addison, then expressing all the way to the end of the line at Howard because of unrelated construction being done on the northbound tracks between Wilson and Jarvis, Mayberry said.“This is as close to normal” as it will get all weekend, Mayberry said.It wasn’t clear what caused the derailment, which left train cars upright but part of the train off the track.

But the northbound train was switching tracks when it happened, according to Chicago Fire Department Cmdr. Curtis Hudson.

Trains were being shifted from their normal tracks during the scheduled work to improve slow zones.The derailment happened at 2:07 p.m., according to Mayberry, who said it took more than an hour for the 175 passengers to be taken off the derailed train.

Hudson said one person was taken to Swedish Covenant Hospital in good condition with a shoulder injury.

The CTA offered riders a shuttle bus to get from Howard south to where they could get back on the L. But, with the bus making stops at L stops along the way, it took at least an hour and 15 minutes to travel through the derailed area, according to the CTA.

Riders were mostly left in the dark about what happened. And there was no word — through the CTA’s electronic message boards or from transit agency workers — about how long it would take for Red Line service to resume.

“This is crazy,” said Garry Hargrove, 62, one of hundreds of riders crowded onto the L platform at Addison Street waiting for a northbound train.

“It’s getting cold,” Hargrove said after waiting more than half an hour. “I don’t have a jacket.”

He said his commute from 79th Street to Howard usually takes about an hour. He was hoping to make it there in less than triple his usual time, but it had already been about an hour and a half since he boarded a delayed train at 79th Street.

“I had plans on going out,” Hargrove said. “I’m not going out now, I’m too frustrated. I’m just gonna sit at home.”

Katy Vogt, 23, felt the same way.

“I was supposed to go to a concert,” said Vogt, also waiting at Addison. “After this, I just want to sit inside.”

Todd Kemnitz said he was even more frustrated by the CTA’s failure to let riders know what to expect than by the delays.

“They just haven’t disseminated the information,” said Kemnitz, 43. “They have all these big speakers. It’s like they’re afraid to talk.”

In Skokie, neither the CTA’s Dempster Street terminal’s electronic message boards nor a transit worker waving passengers through the turnstiles for free — a weeklong goodwill gesture after the Yellow Line was shut down for months — gave any indication that riders headed to Howard wouldn’t be able to get on the Red Line there.

A Yellow Line operator made an announcement once passengers were on board that the Red Line was shut down.

For someone getting on the Yellow Line in Skokie, a trip downtown required taking a train to Howard, a shuttle bus from there to Bryn Mawr, a shuttle train from Bryn Mawr south only as far as Addison, a transfer onto the resumed Red Line service there — and, possibly, another transfer for anyone wanting to go around the Loop on the Brown Line rather than through the subway.

Contributing: Alexandra Kukulka